Just paid for the month $4.99, and downloaded the Plex App for my iPad. I also have the Plex Media Server downloaded. My movies, music, and other media are on several USB drives that are mapped to the network (everything is on the same network, and all USB drives are plugged into one computer).
I can see my movies on the web app, and play them. I haven’t tried on my smart TV yet. However, when I go onto my iPad, I can see all of the movies, but they are all marked as “Unavailable”. The drives are all properly mounted (if they weren’t I would not be able to play them with the Web App), the files are all there, and I would think having the App activated (by paying the $4.99) would be enough.
I don’t want to pay more for a subscription if this is not going to work. Must I also be subscribed to stream to my iPad from my server?
From what it looks you paid a one-time activation for the iOS client – just for your re-assurance… not a monthly payment
That being said… this has nothing to do with the actual issue.
From the symptoms it sounds like the Plex Media Server actually cannot see the movies. Could it be the server looses connection to your USB drives while those are spinning down?
If you get the “Unavailable” message on your iPad and try to play the exact same movie view Plex Web, it should give you the same error message.
OK … so if the $4.99 was just the activation fee for the app, and not the subscription, then I think maybe the problem is that I need to subscribe to premium (for at least the minimum of a month, also at $4.99), so that the streaming to mobile feature will actually work.
I just hooked it up to my smart TV, and it’s working perfectly there. I’m going to test it out on one of the other smart TVs. So, again, I think that all the movies are there an accessible (I’ve got about 3,000 on the drives), it’s got to be a mobile issue, and I suspect that mobile subscription (once the app is activated) is probably the issue.
As you can see, using Plex on a mobile client (such as your iPad isn’t free – if you sign-up for a Plex Pass membership, access to all mobile clients is included; as you activated the Plex for iOS client, you’re good to go).
As for your issue…
Can you logout from the iPad’s Plex client, force-kill the app and re-start / re-login to confirm if the issue persists?
Interesting. No, the server is only seeing that the movies are there (and I get a thumbnail), but not seeing the movies, except one or two of them. I’m going to track down where those two movies are located. If they are on the regular movie drives, then I’m back to confused. If they are on another drive, then I have more questions (because both movie drives are absolutely mounted … I can access them from the computer easily).
Glad to know I don’t absolutely need to subscribe, but I would like to get access to the drives off the WiFi network eventually, and I think that is one of the advanced features.
The whole thing is getting stranger and stranger. If a movie shows as “not available”, but I start playing it on the computer, then it continues playing on the iPad just fine.
